SDCC 2013

So should I say I'm going to San Diego this year? I should. 

I have little idea what I will be doing there. My con experience is pretty much BeerFest stuff from the volunteer end of things. I've been to the local Boston con, the last Milwaukee GenCon, and beer cons galore. 

I be the dude visibly in the middle part of the Venn Diagram of soccer and nerds insomuch that I have a pair of Game of Thrones jerseys.  

Clark Kent, World's Worst Chiropractor

So yeah, I saw Man of Steel and am maybe knee deep in the sturm and drang surrounding it. I didn't hate the movie, but the more I think about it, the more I feel it was the result of a wish granted by that twisted Monkey's Paw. "I wish Superman would punch something!" we wished after Superman Returns. The Paw's index finger slowly curled down. "I wish there was a big fight!" The middle finger followed. "Ungh. Superman has a kid? What's with that character development? Wish they didn't do that!" The thumb presses against the dry, leather palm.

Man of Steel is the result of our wishes, twisted by the horrible power of the Paw. There are still two fingers left, two wishes that can be granted at great cost. Those fingers are already trembling - Man of Steel 2 and the Justice League Movie have been fast-tracked for 2014 and 2015 respectively.

According to recent interviews, the whole Killing Zod thing was Snyder's doing. "How can you know you don't like something if you haven't tried it?" is a line I use on my three year old, not one that should be used for iconic characters. If Snyder wanted something to make Superman wake up and say, "No more death at my hands!" maybe he could have used the estimated 129,000 people killed in the fight in Metropolis as the broccoli? Sure, Supes didn't kill all those people (the stompy World Engine did that), but I'm sure a handful of survivors saying, "So remember when you threw Zod through that building? My wife was in there." or "Superman, will you help raise these orphans? Their Mom and Dad were having breakfast at that IHOP." would get him to reconsider the blood on his hands.

With Zod, though, they really wrote themselves into a corner. By not having him get sucked up into the Phantom Zone, they really did leave themselves with no other option but the whole 'it's you or me' thing. That's no excuse, mind you, as they are the ones who set the stage. Even if you agree that just having Zod get sucked into the Phantom Zone with the rest of the Kryptonian Cenobites unsatisfying (although that has allowed Pinhead to keep coming back for years and years), there has to be a better way to solve the Zod Problem than having an iconic character betray ideals 75 years in the making.

Quick Ideas:
- Zod, upon realizing that he has failed in his genetically ordained duty to protect and preserve Krypton, kills himself upon defeat. Superman learns something about duty and zealotry.
- Zod is defeated, but the Phantom Zone rift is still open and he's getting sucked in. Zod pleads with Superman to save him as he's the only other Kryptonian left and all he has to do is using his Kryptonian powers to pull him back... but Superman says, "Yeah, I'm going to be human for the next few seconds" and lets him get sucked away (ala Superman II, the no-fault murder).
- Zod is defeated, but needs to be sent away. Hologram Jor-El is still in the scoutship and can take him, sort of a reverse 'rocket escaping Krypton' deal. Superman gets some closure on saying goodbye to father figures and the hologram and prisoner take off, a ghost and a shell of a man.
- Combine the two above and have Holo Jor-El take Zod into the Phantom Zone, shutting it after them.
- Zod threatens innocents, but instead of four random people, it's the entire world. "So you've taking this planet at your home? Then let's see how you like watching it explode in lava like I watched mine." He then digs down to the center of the Earth, kamikaze style. His powers don't hold up. (Main flaw in this plan is that Metropolis's streets are made out of indestructible bedrock ala Minecraft - why else would the World Engine fail to flatten subways or sewers below?)  


And those are changes you can make without re-writing big portions of the movie! The Zod killing scene was bolted on at the end, after all. This is what makes the last two fingers of the Monkey's Paw so terrifying: the sequel and the Justice League movie are being rushed. RUSHED. How long was Man of Steel in production and this was the best they could think of? Get ready for Man of Steel 2: Men of Steel! Louis CK plays a computer programmer/criminal who invents some sort AI in a coal mine that, uh, sticks magnets on people's faces and makes them fight Superman for some reason. 

Delay

No post this week. I'm based in Boston and the events of Monday have thrown things into a flurry of business. I was not affected by the blast - we had the day off and spent it lounging about at home - but given my office is on Beacon Hill, I had to spend a few frenzied hours making sure that the library would be open and that the university administration knew that we were open. Follow this up with the fact one of my employees was actually there for the blast (she and her family are thankfully physically unharmed, but the shock of the thing is a heavy load for anyone) so I've been covering for her understandable absence and I'm left with not a lot of time or will to ponder the fate of Peter Parker.

So, sorry, stats gathering indexing SEO robots, no new post for you to blindly index today.

Marvel 1962: Stop, Gamma Time

Before we really get into the fate of Dr. Bruce Banner, I think we need to step back and take a look at our friend, The Gamma Ray.

What exactly is gamma radiation and what place does it have in the Marvel Universe? First off, the gamma radiation we're talking about is not your father's gamma radiation (assuming, of course, that your father is, like mine, a physicist) that does boring stuff like cell degeneration and cancer. No, the gamma radiation we're talking about is part of that staple of comics, The MacGuffin What Does Give People Powers.

We've already seen this MacGuffin show up once in the form of the cosmic rays that gave the Fantastic Four their abilities. We'll see it again when we encounter mutants and the X-Gene, the Inhumans and the Terrigen Mists, and random vats of chemicals falling off the backs of trucks onto lawyers. Given Marvel's heavy sci-fi leanings, there are hosts of minor characters who got their powers due to OSHA violations. This faded over the years as the X-Men grew in popularity - eventually you could just call the random thug of the week a mutant and didn't need some tragic backstory that involved them fleeing into a suspiciously unlocked chemical factory or irradiated beach.

Since things are still early in our reboot, I wonder if it's worthwhile unifying all the different ways people get powers in our version of the Marvel Universe? Besides color palette, what's the real difference between cosmic rays and gamma rays? They both have variable, non-repeatable effects, they both change biological matter as opposed to inert matter. So why have more than one?

So let's not. Let's posit that there is some sort of ur-particle behind things like cosmic rays, Terrigen Mists, and gamma radiation. This particle binds with biological matter, raising troubling implications regarding the existence of the soul, that we are more than carbon-based machines. It is the method of approaching this particle that produces the different effects. At its base, it's the same particle, it just depends on what technique you used to access it. The Fantastic Four, though they don't know it, came closest to the most 'pure' form of the particle, and their spot of bother getting home from their Heart of Gold-esque voyage actually bombarded the Earth in it.

So that means if Bruce Banner had run onto that bomb testing range in 1960 rather than 1962, he would have died. Peter Parker would not be remembered as 'puny' so much as 'that kid who died on the field trip.' Flint Marko would have died of cancer in prison. This also explains why there was not an army of super-powered Japanese citizens following the dropping of the atomic bombs - the door had not been opened yet.

This is not to say that our particle, let's call in the Infinite Possibility Particle because, well, it will be used for things like the Cosmic Cube and Infinity Gems later on, has not been on Earth previously. It's part of the background radiation of the universe and has been both intentionally and unintentionally collected over the years.

The Kree knew how to distill it, leading to the creation of the Terrigen Mists and the birth of the Inhumans. Later, after the Kree left Earth, the Inhumans continued to distill the stuff, not 100% clear on what they were doing, treating it more like an act of faith than science (and later still, the Skrulls would finally get their hands on that tech, leading to the creation of the first Super Skrull). 

Turns out our very DNA can soak the stuff up - design flaw? - which lead to the eventual emergence of the X-gene. Still, pre-1961 people with activated mutant genes are pretty rare. The rise in the number of mutants we see through the end of the sixties and into the seventies is largely due to the Fantastic Four's return to Earth.

So now that the IPP is out there, how can it be drawn out? High energy is one way, and there's no better way to get energy in 1962 than a gamma bomb. The bomb itself was designed just to blow stuff up. It wasn't until Bruce Banner was exposed to the detonation that it was found that gamma radiation was a great way to knock loose IPPs and switch them into an active state. In that state, tinged with green, IPPs react to not only biological matter, but spiritual consciousness as well, twisting the physical form into something more reflective of the inner. There are some standard effects, of course, like increased strength, healing factor, and a green hue, but how those effects manifest varies by subject - thus Abomination's scales, Harpy's feathers, and Leader's big ole noggin.

As for Hulk himself, we don't need to do a lot of tweaking. He's been tweaked constantly over the years - grey to green, nocturnal transformations to rage bases, slave of a teenager to slave of rage, etc - so we can go with the most popular and widely known version. Bruce Banner is a scientist with some inner rage problems. After exposure (I actually typed "explosure" there which makes sense) to IPPs on the back of gamma radiation, he turns into the Hulk when he gets angry, upset, or otherwise stressed. As the Hulk, he's the strongest there is. Hulk is not a dumb brute - he's fierce and clever - although as he gets angrier (and thus stronger) he gets more savage and much less likely to listen to reason.

Banner's bomb goes off in May of 1962. The Hulk spends the first few months of his existence rampaging around the American southwest, chased by the US military. It will take some time before anyone understands him to be more than a force of destruction, and even with the Avengers speaking up for him most of the world is dubious.

Marvel 1962: Pym

On the heels of the Fantastic Four's return to Earth, we have the arrival of another Man of Marvelous Science, Dr. Henry Pym. How can we wedge this ever shifting character into the Marvel Drewniverse? Start him out as Ant-Man? Giant-Man? Goliath? Yellow Jacket? Whackjob?

Thing is, looking back at Marvel's publishing history, Pym didn't become a superhero until 1963. His first appearance was more in line with Marvel's standard science fiction one-off stories of the day - Scientist discovers Science Thing, Commies and/or Nazis try to steal Science Thing, Accident Occurs, Uh-oh, Scientist uses Science Thing to triumph in the end. This is one of Marvel's go-to plots (Scientist = Pym, Science Thing = Shrinking Chemical, Accident = Chemicals spill, Uh-oh = Bees, bees, bees) used almost as often as the "And Then Aliens Show Up" plot.

Pym was never a popular character with Marvel. Actually, looking back, he seems to be more of a plot device than anything. To be fair, though, when you compare stories where on one hand you have a guy hassling gangsters with bugs while on the other you have a stretchy guy scaring off God with an electric toothbrush, it'll be hard for bug dude to gain some traction with the fans.

This lack of fan affection is why Pym went through so many different iterations. Fighting bugs not dramatic enough? How about fighting giants?! No? Uh... Well, what if he's, uh, edgy? Like a real jerk in yellow? Edgier, you say? Okay, he also smacks his wife around. And makes a robot that will kill us all. Twice.

Seriously. wot

If I was doing this reboot like I did the DC one and was working on a title-by-title basis, Pym would not get one of his own. I'd tack him in with one of the supergroups (much like Marvel does) and call it a day. I think I'll do something similar here.

Dr. Henry "Hank" Pym was never Ant-Man.

Sure, in 1962, he discovers the Pym Particle which controls basic atomic functions like size and mass and stuff. Sure, some rat-fink Commies try to get their hands on that research by strong arming Pym's boss, Dr. Vernon van Dyne. And of course things go wrong and van Dyne dies. We can even have that original accident where Pym gets shrunk and has to run away from bees or whatever.

No, the real hero (and future Avenger) is Janet van Dyne. She's the one that has the motivational tragedy that most superheroes need to start their careers. Pym can provide her with the abilities - A Pym Particle belt that lets her shrink and fly, wasp-wings that are used more as a shield than flight control (Pym remembers being almost stepped on and how Not Fun that was), and even her stingers which are basically little balls of shrunk matter that expand on contact like mini-explosions. Armed with Pym's tech, Janet is able to avenge the death of her father and bring the bad guys to justice.

As for Pym, he quits the university and goes to work as a consultant. He charges big fees to big companies for working on making their stuff smaller. The money goes to finance his own research. He's got some additional financial backing from Janet (the van Dynes are Old Money) and she sticks around to help protect her investment. Pym does not go out into the field more than a few times over the course of his career. He's a lab rat, he builds stuff.

Stuff like Ultron.

Whoops.

Marvel 1961: Fantastic Four

It begins with a golf game.

Two old academic frenemies are out on the links for their annual game. It's a lovely day in May. Dr. Martin Goodman is feeling especially, well, good about the day because at long last he thinks he can finally put the long game of one-upmanship he's had with Dr. Vernon van Dyne to bed: Goodman has just been named the new President of Midtown University. Surely being the leader of MU beats out whatever van Dyne's been working on over at Empire State?

Not so.

Goodman barely gets a chance to boast about his success when van Dyne launches into an enthusiastic account of the discoveries a member of his faculty, a Dr. Hank Pym, has made. Goodman, who has always been aware that he's not a good a scientist as van Dyne (but a much better bureaucrat and politician), barely listens to his golf partner's description of particles and claims that Pym's discovery will alter the course of mankind. He just stews, knowing that such a leap forward will put Empire on the map and blow the  achievements of Midtown University's science department, the department he built by the way, out of the water.

So after losing the golf game and choking down a few highballs in the clubhouse that taste of poison and failure, Goodman rushes back to campus, bursts into the labs, and corners the first promising young idea man he can find.

Reed Richards.

Richards is an interesting choice for Goodman, but the older man rarely thinks things through and just tends to go with his gut. Sure, Richards had that 'incident' with a dorm mate last year that lead to that other fellow dropping out and heading back to Eastern Europe, but he's a bright kid - eager, intelligent, and best of all for Goodman's purposes, naive. In his riled up state, Goodman doesn't really explain what Pym is working on, instead he just focuses on what he wants out of Richards - something big, something life changing

Something fantastic.

In return, Richards can have all the funding he wants. Doctorate? No problem. Whatever you build will be your dissertation. If it works, you have your PhD. If it works well, works big? You have a job with tenure. Whatever you need, whatever you want, just make... something.

That's the sort of blank check that a young scientist like Reed Richards can't ignore. Given free run of the science facilities, he dives into his work. He's not sure exactly what he'll work on, but who cares? There's an entire universe of possibilities out there. Hrm. Universe. Now there's an idea. Let's go see the universe.

Early on, Reed decides to skip the Moon. It's just a dead rock, right? People have been watching it for centuries and it hasn't done anything of interest. No, Reed wants to make a ship that can go anywhere, a sort of phasic ship that can skim the cosmic radiation of the universe and go anywhere almost instantly. He gives his list of requirements to Goodman who wastes no time in pulling resources from other parts of the university to support Richards. Sorry, Dr. Octavius, but we need your nuclear power core. No, Doctor, technically it's university property and if you don't like it, you can leave. Okay, bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Richards works on into the summer. He builds a Cosmic Beacon, a way for his ship to find its way home from the outer fringes, and even has a bit of a mental breakdown. When Goodman learns that all his eggs are currently in a basket that might be warping under the pressure, he brings in the daughter of an old friend of his, Dr. Franklin Storm. Frank fell on some rough times and Sue could use the work to help support herself and her brother.

Turns out, bringing in Sue Storm as Richard's assistant was a masterstroke of management. Reed's behavior calms down - he even stops claiming to have been visited by extra-terrestrials when he first turned on the Cosmic Beacon - and he's able to refocus on his work. Sue proved adept at managing Reed's attentions, knowing when to kick him out of the lab and make him spend time his his friends and when to let him work through the night. The two become close and fall in love.

Sue is the one that notices signs of Reed starting to crack again, but this time it's not because of his work. His best (only) friend, Ben Grimm, joined the Air Force some time ago and it looks like he's about to be deployed in an 'advisory capacity' in the recently turbulent theatre Vietnam. She's the one who goes to Goodman and suggests that the young pilot is someone that Project Fantastic needs, not only to fly the ship, but to keep Richards on an even keel.

Ben Grimm, who was Richard's roommate in undergrad, is a bit put out that he's missed an opportunity to help his country, but in the end he comes around. He actually proves to be really helpful - having spent enough time in a cockpit, he knows what a pilot needs. As Sue gets more and more involved in the project, her brother Johnny steps in as well. Just as Reed needs Sue to keep him grounded, Sue needs Johnny. Besides, Goodman pulled the strings that are paying for Johnny's college education, so helping out at the Midtown University labs is really just some sort of workstudy job, right?

Of course, this sort of thing can only go on so long before the University's Board of Trustees start sniffing around. Where is all this money going? Why are tenured members of faculty complaining that their resources are being usurped by a 24 year old? In October of 1961, the Board steps in and puts a halt to Richard's work. At first, Goodman fights them on it - just look at what the kid has done in a few months! A Cosmic Beacon! Sure, it doesn't seem to do anything practical for the moment, but in time it will put humanity's stamp on the universe! Just a little more time!

But then Vernon van Dyne dies under suspicious circumstances and the fight goes out of Goodman. What's the point if the one person he wanted to show up is gone? Maybe the Board is right. Throttle down the crazy pace. Yes, yes, Richards, you can still work on it. Here, you can even have your doctorate like I promised. The university simply can't commit unlimited resources to Project Fantastic any more. Your ship will still fly, just not for another decade or so. I don't care if you are so close. We need to wind things down by the end of November.

Reed Richards, having grown used to his frantic research pace, is not ready to slow down. How many years will be lost while the University seeks to partner with other institutions? How will the project change if the government gets involved? With the project wound down, Ben will have to go back to Vietnam...

No. Ef that. We'll go into space. We'll see the universe. And we'll do it soon.

So it's over the long Thanksgiving weekend that Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben slip into the lab and ready the ship. The Beacon is activated and the ship launches, phasing up and out through solid matter, up into the sky, out into the great unknown. The four succeed. They see the universe! Everything! Stars and galaxies and... life? Is that really signs of life they see? It's hard to tell, phasic travel is so confusing. It's like you're everywhere at once with only the Beacon to keep you grounded, to give you a sense of up and down, of here and there.

And then someone shuts it off. It's not really Stanley Lieber's fault. He's just a guy working a night custodian job to earn some money until his writing career takes off. He just walked into the lab, saw it empty with all the lights on and machinery humming, and shut it down, whistling, before moving down the hall.

Without the Cosmic Beacon, the four travelers are in crisis. Currently, they're Everywhere. How can they get back to There without the Beacon? It's a close run thing. It takes all of them working together to guide the ship through extra dimensional space back home. Without the Beacon, they take the Long Way Home, passing through the very edge of creation itself.

That the craft crash lands in Upstate New York is a testament to Ben Grimm's piloting skills. Imagine threading a needle with a pin from ten feet away while drunk and dizzy. To even hit the needle with the thrown pin would be amazing, and that's just the equivalent of the four finding their way back to our solar system.

We all know what happens when the four emerge from the craft. They've changed. Rocky features, flaming skin, invisible body, elastic form. But still, they're alive, the four of them and they've returned from a fantastic voyage.

And the world will never be the same.  

Marvel Pre-History

So one aspect of the Marvel reboot I've decided on is that I'll be starting Year 0 as Year 1961. This is, of course, the year Fantastic Four #1 came out. It's also the year the words 'Marvel Comics' first appeared on the newstands, but I think you can forgive me for not starting my version of the Marvel Universe with Patsy Walker.


Of course, by starting in 1961 that leaves a lot of Marvel canon languishing in the past. All of the Golden Age and World War 2 stuff, for example, would have already happened before I even get to Year 0. While Marvel (then Timely) didn't have a huge Golden Age when compared to DC, they did have several heroes that came out pre-Fantastic Four. Most of them were relegated to the ash heap of history, occasionally brought out when Marvel is in a nostalgic mood, heroes like Captain America, Namor, and maybe even the original Human Torch, need to be acknowledged.

It's also interesting to note that Sgt. Nick Fury (and his Howling Commandos), though active in WWII, did not come out in comicbook form until 1963. I guess this shows how DC I am when I had sort of assumed that Fury was active in comics in WWII in some form before being brought back in the Silver Age as a super-spy S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Speaking of S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA predates them by a few years, having been introduced in the 50s in Menace doing typically HYDRA things (stealing a bomb that turns people into monsters). Red Skull was from the 40s.

Out of all that mess, we need to do some clean up. If the characters listed above, only Captain America has any real need to be tied into the past. Nick Fury can howl his way across Korea in the early 50s, which leaves him plenty of background before he becomes a spy in 1965. Captain America, though, is just too iconic for his Nazi-punching to be shifted up to the Korean War. Even though they were part of the Invaders, Namor and the Human Torch don't really have the same Golden Age legacy - they came into their own through the lens of the Fantastic Four in the 60s.

So here's the deal: Captain America, Bucky, Red Skull, and all that happened back in WWII. Cap totally punched Hitler in March of 1941, which lead to Hitler authorizing the funding Johann Schmidt wanted for his own superscience programs. He figured that even if they couldn't come up with a counter to Captain America, they certainly could distract the guy with an endless parade of wacky schemes. One of those schemes went awry, which is why Schmidt's got a bit red in the face. Captain America (and Bucky) went missing soon after defeating the Red Skull in 1945 - there was a big explosion at a Nazi base, but eyewitness reports were conflicted. Maybe it was a rocket being launched from the base that the GIs saw, maybe it was just debris.

Namor might have been active during WWII, but if he was, he was just defending his undersea kingdom from German U-boats. No big team ups with him and Cap and the Human Torch (who despite his legacy as being the oldest of the Timely superheroes, I'm sadly confining to the scrap-bin of history - the first Torch anyone cares about will be Johnny Storm).

Red Skull's Sleepers are still active through out the 50s. These are little surprises he put in place when it looked like his beloved Reich would fall. The Sleepers, robots and bombs and so on, could account for the large number of "alien visitors" that appeared in the 50s. Maybe Schmidt knew something the rest of the world didn't? I've always liked the idea that HYDRA isn't just about recapturing the power of the Reich, but instead trying to rebuild and recollect some of the power of the organization's early days. Future leaders Strucker and Zemo know full well that they are living in the Skull's shadow and are agog at the amount of innovations that came out during his leadership (Hint: Step 1 - Create Time Dilation Technology). More on HYDRA to come!

So what about the rest of the Marvel Universe? I've decided that I won't worry about it much until I need to. While I'd love to flashback thousands of years to the creation of the Eternals, the Inhumans, and hell, according to Marvel Saga even Conan is part of the continuity, I'll deal with them when their characters actually step up onto the world stage. Otherwise, I may never get this thing off the ground! In between Chronology entries, I'll do separate ones covering the backstories of some of the setting elements that had just become relevant. No need to go into Asgardian history until it starts to matter with Thor's first appearance in 1962.

Crap, that's coming up soon, huh? 

The Age of Drewatu

GREETINGS, MORTAL!

I AM DREWATU THE WATCHER!

I SHALL TELL THE TALE OF AN AGE OF MARVELS

Ahem. Sorry about that. So, yeah, I'm getting ready to embark on the long promised reboot of the Marvel Universe. Finally after long years I will justify my scribbling a beard on Fing Fang Foom, Elektra, and Cyclops in the banner above.

In doing research for this project (subscribing to Marvel Unlimited, digging up my tattered Essential Marvel Saga, etc), I'm starting to get a grasp on the sheer scope of what lies ahead. This looks like it will be much harder than the DC Reboot for a few reasons.

First, I'm not writing to a list of titles. The framework of the 52 allowed me the armature to mold the clay around. I knew I had limited space (52 titles) and certain requirements (# of Bat-books >5) which weirdly gave me more freedom to tweak the setting. No disappearing down a rabbithole of the history of Thanagar or the origins of the Lazarus Pits. I mean, I did do that, but not in any of my blog entries.

Second, the approach I want to take is difficult. I mean, basically what I want to do is come up with the story of the Marvel Universe if Marvel Time did not exist. Obviously, taking a concept named after the setting from the setting is not easy. Marvel Time, that sort of fuzzy flux around the Marvel universe where things happened 'a few years ago' rather than 'in 1962' is a core part of the setting. That's why Marvel avoids all the reboots good ole DC goes through - because characters don't really age and history compacts itself to fit a given timeframe. Look at Spidey, for example, the dude (or his body at least) is currently, what, in his early 20s? Yet he's had how many adventures? How many experiences? Surely much more than could fit into the 7 or 8 years he's been Spider-Man (and that's even accounting for those experiences Brand New Day'd away by the Devil). To pin down events to a given year then move forward would unwind the tapestry holding everything together. If Spider-Man got his powers at the age of 15 in 1962, he'd be 66 today.

Third, the scope of the Marvel Universe is bugnuts insane. Villains range from dudes who use stilts to steal things from second story windows all the way up to godlike aliens who eat planets. Same thing for heroes - you have guys who are good with a bow standing next to gods of myth and thunder. DC gets some of this too, but you never get the same sense that some characters are simply out of their league in a given situation. Call it the Batman Effect, but in DC, any mortal with a certain level of training has a chance to defeat a cosmic conqueror. Maybe their chances are not as good as their pal who just happens to be the Last Son of Krypton, but they're not bad. You can see the Batman Effect play out semi-weekly in Young Justice, a show on the Cartoon Network based around the idea that the overlooked sidekicks are actually the most dangerous heroes. Hell, after catching up on that show over this past snowy winter, it's pretty clear that the most dangerous members of the Young Justice setting are the humans - Artemis, Robin, Sportsmaster, Cheshire, etc (and that's before to even get to Normal People in Power Suits). The closest thing Marvel has to the Batman Effect is Squirrel Girl and her ability to bring down baddies several magnitudes bigger than her is played like a schtick, the exception that proves the rule.

Fourth, the higher up you climb on the Marvel Power Ladder, the more insane things get. Galactus. Celestials. The Living Tribunal. Mephisto. The Elders of the Universe. Beyonders. Eon. The Asgardians. Even Death plays a part. You also have a heaping Celestial-sized handful of super-powerful MacGuffins like the Ultimate Nulifier, Cosmic Cubes, Soul Gems, Infinity Gauntlet, and probably dozens more pieces of junk that were Items of the Week in the 1960s. Getting all these cosmic powers to work together in a logical way has been the work of Marvel writers for decades. While DC spun its wheels in the Silver Age, Marvel kept ramping up the dangers. I mean, Galactus first appeared in 1966. The Living Tribunal in '67. If we keep plotting that trajectory, where the hell are we going to be in 2013?


Still, this looks like it will be a fun project. Marvel's roots are in sci-fi and there's much more of a sense that anything can happen (minor villain constructs a copy of Earth on the other side of the sun? Why not.), a sense that will be magnified once we get to a place where the classic Marvel heroes of yore start to age out of the business. Peter Parker will need to hang up his webslingers at some point, so Ben Reilly will get his chance, ultimately passing the torch to Miles Morales in the modern age.

I know nobody will really see it outside of random mentions on discussion boards (Hi, Space Battles!), but I didn't spend all those years reading Marvel Comics and not learn a little something about courage. But if you did happen to stumble on this site while googling (and I've seen the search terms that bring people here *shiver*), please stick around and enjoy

THE MARVEL AGE OF DREW!

Toddler Reboot: Fireman Sam

So I may have mentioned that I'm a dad. My son is only 2.5 years old, so he's still way to young for comics. I tried (when Mom wasn't looking) to get him started on Marvel's Super Hero Squad, but he didn't take too kindly to Fing Fang Foom or the Hulk. Maybe when he's a bit older. At the very least, he now calls the Jolly Green Giant the Hulk, so the foot is in the door.

He loves cartoons, though, and one cartoon in particular: Fireman Sam. It's set in the Welsh village of Pontypandy and everyone there is suicidal. This probably explains why there are only like eight people in the entire place (despite seeing row after row of houses) - the rest of the population succeeded in offing themselves and those that remain are just too dim to get the job done.

Not for lack of trying, mind you. Norman Price, the red headed son of the owner of the local market, endangers his life and others on a routine basis. He's always getting stuck on top of things (cliffs, towers), in things (fences, burning rooms), on things (doorknobs in said rooms), or at the bottom of things (wells). There's the town handyman, Mike Flood who is pretty clumsy and falls down pits or ends up dangling from roofs with a frequency that's even more disturbing when you consider his love of fireworks and rocketry. There's also a fisherman who gets stranded at sea, a sidekick firefighter who explodes ovens, a bus driver who really needs to pay better attention to the maintenance of his bus, and a handful of kids who just love to hide in underwater caves, under crates, or in burning buildings. Fireman Sam is called upon to rescue them all.

So what I'm saying is, it's a grim place. You think the writers of the show would have run out of emergencies by now, but Sam is actually in its second iteration. The original show was all claymation animated (and was originally all in Welsh) and the new version (the one my son loves) is computer animated.

Which leads me to my reboot, or at very least, my attempt to explain what the hell is going on.

Fireman Sam is dead. He is in Purgatory. The limited cast of characters that populate his limbo are the souls of those he could not rescue. Sam died in the transition between stopmotion animated and computer animation. This explains why the stereotypical Italian restaurant owner is now longer around - as a good Catholic, she ascended to Heaven.

Sam does not realize he is dead. He just goes through the same motions day after day. He will be free when he admits his failures, his sins, and his own death. There is an angel present - Charlie the Fisherman (get it!?). In the show, he's Sam's brother, a brother that was never mentioned in the show's initial run. That he is family in the Purgatory version is important as one of Sam's greatest sins is his refusal to acknowledge his own son, the only other ginger in town, Norman Price.

Norman has no stated dad and his mom, Dilys, has shown herself to be rather forward in her conquest of new lovers (Trevor the Bus Driver). So I imagine on some lonely night, perhaps while Sam was new in town, he and Dilys got it on. Dilys was blackmailing Sam - why else would she insist on calling him over every little thing? All those random visits were not just to "check the smoke detector," there was money exchanged. So when The Great Fire came, Sam took his chance and let Dilys burn. Unfortunately, he let the rest of the town burn as well.

So until he admits what he did, he's trapped, doomed to endlessly rescue the same crew of suicidal shades (they yearn to be free as well) from the hell of his own creation.

I sympathize with Fireman Sam, because until my toddler finds a new obsession, I'm damned as well - doomed to endlessly watch Fireman Sam endlessly rescue the same crew of suicidals.

What If Superman Were Gay?

Like most people who lurk on the fringes of the comics world, I've been following the whole Orson Scott Card Writes Superman debacle for a few weeks now. I'm not sure if anything else needs to be said about it beyond the broad strokes - famous author who actively campaigns to withhold the rights of others gets opportunity to write beloved character, fans of beloved character who (like the character himself) want equal rights for all get mad and promise to withhold support. DC is tone deaf on the issue which causes more consternation leading to the original artist who was paired with controversial author to bow out, delaying the whole comic.

Outside of wanting two people who love each other to be able to legally bind their lives together and not have to worry about being denied visiting their loved ones in a hospital, I don't have much of a horse in this race. I mean, the last time Card wrote comic story featuring a pre-existing character, he turned Iron Man into a big blue brain slug that was just shaped like a person.

Yeah, pass.

But it did get me thinking about what would happen if Superman was gay? This line of thought distracted me for all of ten seconds on the train ride in this morning because, well, it wouldn't change much. Would Superman still rescue people? Yes. Would he still fight intergalactic badguys? Sure. He'd be pretty much the same hero he always was, only instead of smooching Lois, he'd smooch Jimmy.

Hell (H'eL?), you wouldn't even need to change much of his backstory. I mean, he's a person with a secret who grew up in a conservative farm town in Kansas. In Superman's case, that secret is that he's an alien. For a lot of people, that secret is that they are gay, bi, or transgender and feel that they are unable to admit it due to societal pressures. Compared to being an alien, being gay is so far down the list of Things Clark Needs to Worry About (below 'Pa Needs To Watch His Cholesterol,' above 'Warranty on the Tractor is Running Out in Two Years') that he'd probably be out by his senior year just to get Lana off his back.

Would we see a change in Superman's behavior? Maybe. It'd be hard for him to be more of a champion for equality, but then again he is an immigrant and I don't recall him speaking up on those issues as well. He might have been distracted by all the alien-punching, plane catching, and Luthor-thwarting he does.

Because Superman's sexuality is rarely at the forefront, it really doesn't matter where on the Kinsey scale he falls. It's just not important to the character or the stories he appears in. He'd still appear to be the same hero he is now.

I wonder, though, if the same could be said about changing Superman's ethnic appearance or gender? In those cases, you'd have a hero who would physically appear different than what we have now. We'd still have the Kents' upbringing guiding the hero's behavior, giving him/her a sense of right and wrong. The character would do the same things - fight Mogul, throw missiles into the sun, jump tall buildings - and would probably be treated much the same in the world of the comic. Given that the majority of people are okay with a big green guy from Mars flying around, I'm pretty sure they could take a darker skinned Superman. They have no problem with Wonder Woman, so I'm sure Superwoman would get a pass too. In the setting, Superman is Superman is Superwoman is Superman.

No, the big change would come from how the creators and the readers would treat this Alternate Superman. Think about how Wonder Woman is drawn. Think about all the lazy stereotypes applied to minorities in comics. Could the current comics industry pull off a Superman who isn't a white dude?

Yearly Check In

I should really keep up on this blog. I'm reading comics again (but nothing from the New 52) and even will be going to Comic-Con this summer.

My consumption of comics has changed over the year - mostly iPad based ComiXology binges. I still make sure to buy Adventure Time single issues from the Favorite Local, but have started to falter on picking up trades, mainly because I can't remember where I am in a given series.

I listen to a few comic podcasts as well - House to Astonish and Wait, What? mainly. I tried some others, but they didn't stick. I'm not sure why - W,W? is essentially two hours of rambling, but it's two hours I like for some reason. Looking over my podcast pull-list, I see a trend for favoring podcasts featuring "friends with accents who are enthusiastic about a topic" so I guess my fondness rests solely on Graeme McMillan's cheery shoulders.

Anyways, I was pondering doing a Living Marvel Universe type thing where I move through Marvel history and actually have characters age and die and so on, but I realized I'd be stuck when I finished the Bronze Age. Are there any new Marvel characters after, say, 1995? If so, would they be compelling without the Old Classics still kicking around?

My Little PLony

Yeah, yeah, long time, no post. Between the academic semester resuming and my preference for trades over single issues, I've not had much to say about comics.

So instead, here's a digression involving English Premier League Teams and My Little Pony!

Adventure Time!

It's Lovecraft Time!

Well, I figure if they can do it with Fionna and Cake, why not Phin and Zeke? Phin is short of Phineas, of course, and Zeke is Ezekiel, two wholesome Lovecraftian names. Phin and Zeke live in the Eldritch Kingdom where they help out Princess Niggurath by protecting her against the constant incursions by the Nice King, a stuck up fellow with a strange obsession regarding reforming princesses. Occasionally, they hang out with Marzilkael the Wayward Angel (don't let her halo fool you - she's just as wicked as the rest of the bunch) or just wander the Land of Ia searching for that which man was not meant to know.

Tarot Tuesday: The Empress and Emperor

Whoops. I had a nagging suspicion yesterday that I had forgotten something but I just couldn't figure it out.

We're up to the Empress now, who of course is Wonder Woman. Who else could be described as a "daughter of heaven and earth," especially now in the Nu52 where it's been revealed that she's actually Zeus's daughter. I'm not a big fan of that turn of events, by the way, as it takes away one of my favorite aspects of Wonder Woman (that she's essentially a golem) and replaces it with what is pretty much Hercules' backstory. This means we can look forward to a slew of godly daddy issues that were already covered in recent memory by Marvel's Hercules titles. Given that Herc once punched someone into a Hell taken straight from the third panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights to the sound effect 'BOSCH!' I'm not sure Wondy can top that.

Still, in my preferred version, being a clay statue that has had life breathed into it by the gods still satisfies the "daughter of heaven and earth" description. Her outfit even matches - we're talking diadems and stars here, stuff that Wonder Woman has in spades. Despite being the most magical of the Big Three, Wonder Woman traditionally doesn't seem to deal with much magic. Sure, there was Circe, but her magic was pretty much straight out of the "zap you're a pig now" tradition. No real mysteries or mystical understandings, just good old fashioned punching and light bondage.

The Empress is a mother figure, which Wonder Woman, being the First Among Female Superheroes is as well. In post-Silver Age times, Wonder Woman has been an inspirational figure, laying the groundwork for more female superheroes in comics, while her TV version is considered a gay icon. Both the Empress and Wonder Woman are passionate figures, much more prone to action than introspection.


In order to make up for yesterday's slackerdom, let's toss in a bonus card - The Emperor. My iPad woes cost this series its pictorial back-up after all, so why not let loose on the throttle?

The Emperor, the King of the World, is Aquaman.

Aquaman, as ruler of the oceans that cover the majority of the planet, is pretty much the defacto ruler of the world. That he doesn't meddle with surface governments is akin to the USA not meddling with Canada too much. Yeah, we all know you're up there, just keep it down, will ya? Don't make me come up there, Atlantis' Hat. In addition to the sheer size of the oceans, remember also their vital role in the ecology of the Earth. Without the green algae that produce most of our oxygen, we'd be kinda fucked.

The Emperor represents stability. And though we've seen a few different versions of Aquaman over the years, from harpoon-handed-grizzled-warrior to swashbuckling bravo (The Brave and the Bold's version is by far my favorite), there has always been a certain stability to the character:

He's the butt of a lot of jokes.

Aquaman, though he doesn't, will forever suck. Too many standup comedians, animators, and cartoonists have seen to that. Even his recent reboot wasted a lot of time trying to make him look good, which is sort of pathetic in a "yeah, I have a girlfriend. She lives in Canada - you haven't met her" way. Even the Brave and the Bold Aquaman is a comic relief character to a certain extent.

Just as the Empress and Emperor are linked thematically, so are Wonder Woman and Aquaman. Beyond being stuck together in the invisible jet more often than not in Superfriends, both are important members of royal families based in semi-historical (Greek) inspired fantasy monarchies. Even the shambling travesty that was Flashpoint recognized that there was a connection between the two when it promptly set the Atlanteans and Amazons at war. Were I to plan out a Kingdom Come style What-If future of the DC Universe, I'd probably have Diana and Arthur get together long before Diana and Clark. As the other Big Name heroes fade away or leave the planet, it's up to Wonder Woman and Aquaman to take stewardship of the world, to help protect the entire planet even as humanity heads to the stars. Wonder Woman can speak with the animals, Aquaman talks to the fish - who better to watch out for the rest of the Earth that we leave behind?

Tarot Tuesday: The High Priestess

Bit of a disaster this weekend. I foolishly decided to upgrade my iPad firmware to iOS5. My SketchBookPro files seemed to make it through the upgrade, but after the first sync the entire app went away. Foom, three weeks of future sketches and five months worth of past doodlings wiped out.

Still, we forge ahead. Perhaps we're tempting the gods and fates by playing with the building blocks of the future? Who knows. All I know is I need a weekly reason to post to keep this blog active.

Anyways, the High Priestess is representative of learning, wisdom, virtue, knowledge, and intuition. There are some signifiers for a lack of patience in there too when reversed.

She is, of course, Lois Lane.

So why Lois? Why not one of DC's other female characters? Well, to me, Lois has always been a questing character. She's out there trying to get the scoop, to uncover what was covered, to reveal what was done in darkness. Unlike the Magician, her discoveries are more external than internal. I don't think Lois is a very introspective character, but she does have that whole quest for understanding thing going on at a very intuitive level. What the Magician works to understand, the Priestess just sort of does. How many times has Lois sort of stumbled her way into peril?

And then there's this quote: She represents also the Second Marriage of the Prince who is no longer of this world; she is the spiritual Bride and Mother, the daughter of the stars and the Higher Garden of Eden. She is, in fine, the Queen of the borrowed light, but this is the light of all. The Second Marriage here is, of course, the Earth-2 and preBoot marriages to Superman/Clark Kent. Lois's borrowed light is that of Superman - her relationship with the Kryptonian gives her so much more cache in the DC universe than you'd expect from someone who doesn't wear tights.

Also, I think it's important that the 'understanding' cards like the Magician, High Priestess, and later the Hierophant be human characters bereft of powers of their own. That alone rules out other candidates like Wonder Woman or Zatanna who were born/made with their powers. You have the Magician who is a sort of self-made seeker for understanding, the High Priestess who is the understanding savant, and then the Hierophant who is more the dogmatic seeker who understands via synthesis (betcha you can guess who that'll be now, huh?), which sort of sets up a nice triad that I had doodled out but lost.

We're also keeping to the date of creation here, but I suspect that'll go by the wayside before long. Lois predates Diana by several years and Zatanna by decades.

Tarot Tuesday: The Magician

Can there be any other candidate than Batman for the role of Magician?

1. The Magician (Batman)

Sure, I guess there could be - actual magic users like Zatanna or Dr. Fate being the prime alternative candidates - but for a card that represents skill, willpower, dedication, and a good deal of self-improvement, I think Batman's the one. Maybe it's just me, but The Magician has always been an aspirational card in the tarot deck. That is, when you get your first deck and you're just shuffling through looking at the pictures, The Magician is the dude you want to be.

Same thing with Batman. Given his Just A Guy status, he's certainly the most identifiable of the classic DC heroes. In the twisted logic of not-real realism, people think, "Hey, with an unlimited budget and total dedication, I could be Batman too." Of course, we can't and being Batman is just not a practical way to fight crime in the absence of comic book villainy, but still, we dream.

Just as we dream of being granted access to the mysteries of the universe via a deck of cards we picked up at a Border's going out of business sale. Step 1: Pledge Self. Step 2: ?????? Step 3: Become Batman and/or Magician.

Batman is the Magician because he worked for his abilities. Sometimes he had to be a bit cunning in obtaining the training he desired, but he built himself from the ground up, something that gives him a unique inward looking perspective on himself and his role in the world. Contrast that to Zatanna, who is a Homo Magi (ie, born with her powers) or Fate whose powers stem from his magic helmet.

So we go with Batman, sitting alone at his computer, hidden away in the sanctum sanctorum that is the Batcave. The keyboard is his altar, the tap tap tapping of keys his sacred litany, and the display on screen his revelation.

Arkham City and Twisted Mirrors

So I started playing Arkham City this week. Well, I started trying to play Arkham City at least. Save Points are the bane of the Dad Gamer's existence. You never know when you'll have to deal with your kid getting his head stuck in a shoe, waking up in tears from a previously sound sleep, and so on. Toss in the constant looming threat of Mom commandeering the TV for required teenage vampire viewing, and you're left with 15 minute play sessions.

And when the game only saves after/before long cut scenes, that really, really blows. I may restart the game on Easy just so I can move quickly through the beating up mooks portion of the game.

But as a video game interpretation of a comic book? The game's pretty good. I like that villains left out of the first game, presumably because they were not insane enough to be locked up in Arkham, are out and about in City. I admit a fondness of The Penguin. There's been some complaints about the treatment of women in the game, namely Harley's horrible outfits and Catwoman being called 'bitch' a lot. I agree that Harley's introduction was sad - look, the camera is going to be pointed at your outfit, Harl, so there's no need to draw attention to it via dialogue. I have not progressed far enough to encounter the Catwoman stuff in bulk.

It's strange going from Arkham City to watching an episode of Batman: the Brave and the Bold. The switch happens when the toddler is unleashed (head freed from shoe) due to violence concerns, but I dunno about that. City is so dark, I doubt he could tell if someone was hitting someone else. Meanwhile, Brave and the Bold punches are often in slow-mo, back-lit by a primary color halo. Still, there's the whole bitch thing and given the rate West is picking up new words, that's one I'd rather he not start busting out.

The dread responsibility of a parent, I know.

Anyways, after finishing Season 1 of tBatB, my mind is currently wrapped up in thinking about The Injustice League or Crime Syndicate or whatever the heck they call the Evil Versions of DC's main heroes. I still think about that old Chuck Klosterman piece about Archenemy vs Nemesis and it makes me wonder - are the negative versions of heroes better archenemies (flat out foes) or nemesi (dark reflections too close to home)? Basically, archenemies would never encounter each other without a fight while nemesi could have a super-awkward HBO-style dinner together.

For example, I think Batman and Owlman would get along. I mean, they would be seething at each other the entire time, but I suspect they share enough common traits that a few hours together would not be a horrible debacle.

On top of that, I wonder if the negative reflection characters should simply have the same powers as their primary, just used towards nefarious ends, or should they be entire reimagings? Basically, should we just be slapping a goatee on these folks, or should we allow them to have developed along another path? If we do the latter at what point do we diverge? What details do we change?

Let's use Superman as our example as he already has a few evil versions. There's Ultraman, the gangland style Boss of Bosses evil Superman from Earth-3, Bizarro, a twisted caricature of Superman, and even to some extent the various totalitarian Supermen like the leader of the Justice Lords or even Red Son Superman. Each of these versions have similar powersets but differ in origin. Heck, the Justice Lords version has the same origin as regular Superman, except that he went through some tragedy that lead to a major rethink.

So if I had to come up with an Earth-3 'evil' Superman, what would I do? Tricky. Baby Kal-El being found by different people who do not inspire him like the Kents did has been done to death. So instead, I'd have our Kal-El come to Earth fully grown from a non-exploded Krypton. As a baby, Kal's dad indeed thought Krypton was going to explode and loaded his firstborn into a rocket. When Krypton didn't blow up, though, the baby was recovered from orbit, Jor-El was locked up in an asylum, and Kal grew up in an orphanage, the Balloon Boy of the planet.

Growing up, Kal entered the Science Academy, determined to wipe the stain of his father's name from his family's legacy. Except he wasn't working in the physical sciences. Instead, he became a sort of sociologist-psychologist with a focus on studying how people react to calamity. So when he discovered the existence of Earth, a world of no import populated by people who were psychologically very similar to Kryptonians, he went out to "run some experiments." The fact he developed superpowers when bathed in the light of Earth's yellow sun was just a happy accident - Kal had come with a bevy of deadly Kryptonian devices.

Rather than an evil Superman who cares about material goods and power (Ultraman), is a unfocused force of destruction (Bizarro), or a misguided zealot (Justice Lord/Red Son), we have a Superman who cares more about himself and his theories than anything else. He is divorced from humanity the same way a research scientist is divorced from her lab rats. He operates with a secret identity so as not to affect the outcomes of his experiments, not because he wants to live any closer to the people. He is, pretty much, an uncaring godlike figure who tests man for his own ends. Contrast this with Luthor, who for all of his crimes, at least has a faith in humanity (his). If anything, this evil version of Superman is closer in spirit to Brainiac.

Would this version join an evil Justice League? I doubt it. But that's because I don't think an alternate Earth where the baddies are winning would ever create such an organization. Sure, after they won they might (ala Wanted), but I can't see the Villain of Tomorrow signing up with a bloodthirsty Amazon who wishes to wreak vengeance on a Man's World that responsible for aeons of oppression or a guy who dresses like an owl out of hatred for his parents' weakness in the face of a gunman. I can't see them wanting to join up either, let alone the tyrant that lives beneath the ocean or the intergalactic mercenary with a Power Ring.

Tarot Tuesdays: The Fool

So after a harrowing September-bleeding-into-October, I'm hoping to get things back on track by instituting a few regular features round here. One of them will be Tarot Tuesdays, where I doodle up a DC hero as Tarot card and talk a bit about why that character is a good fit. This feature was inspired by some of the discussions I've read regarding the cards featured on Justice League Dark covers.

We'll be starting with the Major Arcana and working our way through them. The Minor Arcana will probably be done in batches when I'm too lazy to draw. I'll be using Rider-Waite as my main inspiration, mainly because that's the deck I'm the most used to. I used to scam cupcakes in middle school with my strange psychic abilities and a tattered Rider-Waite deck (I also had a set of loaded dice I'd use to grift for chips, but that's a tale for another day), and since that was also the time when I first started reading comics, there's a sort of mental link there for me.


Let's get started with Card 0, The Fool.

0. The Fool. (Superboy)

Superboy stands on the roof of the Kent family's general store, bindle in hand, Krypto the Super-Dog nipping at his heels. The sun shines on his back as he prepares for adventure.

Vertigo did a tarot deck a few years back that cast John Constantine as The Fool, but I'm not so sure about that. To me, The Fool has always been about beginnings and John seems much more concerned with Endings (solving things, wrapping up loose ends, righting wrongs, etc). So I went with Superboy. And not just any Superboy, but the Silver Age version (as indicated by the presence of the Kent's General Store and Krypto).

Waite writes "With light step, as if earth and its trammels had little power to restrain him, a young man in gorgeous vestments pauses at the brink of a precipice among the great heights of the world" which covers young Clark pretty well, don't you think? His precipice is not a physical one, as falling is of no concern to him, but his future. About to leave Smallville for Metropolis, Superboy is about to step out of the innocent chaos of his small-town exploits and into a more world-defining role. Krypto wants him to stay and play, perhaps knowing in the more serious world of Superman, there wouldn't be much of a place for a super powered dog. He has a bindle because that's totally something that Silver Age Clark would have.

On the positive side, The Fool stands for new beginnings, new adventures, new opportunities, unlimited possibilities, pleasure, potential, and passion. Inverted, he represents rashness, plunging ahead without thinking, and thoughtlessness. If you've read some of Superboy's adventures, young Clark was not always the type to think things through (blow to put out a fire, make an enemy for life; make a crack about a how women are poor UFO drivers, get turned into a girl; etc.) and this brashness tended to backfire more often than not. He's clearly not thinking things through here, as protecting his secret identity is probably made harder by hanging out on the roof of his parents' store.


The Fool is a pretty potent card and I wanted it to be represented by a potent character. While Superman himself would be an obvious choice for the lead-off card of the deck, being the first superhero and all, he doesn't quite fit it anymore given the weight of popular culture that now hangs around him. Superman is confident, knowing. Though his arrival opened up worlds of possibilities, he gives the sense that he knows how to navigate through them. Superboy doesn't give that impression, so if we take him in his Young Clark form (as opposed to clone or worlds-adrift jerk versions) we get all the benefits of opening with Supes with none of the Big Blue drawbacks.

Visions of Superman

So last week, I wrote a confusing bit about the difference between a reboot and a reinvention, inspired by Dresden Codak's popular images. Since then, Aaron Diaz has done up a Legion of Doom and a Bat-Family version.

In discussing these renderings with fellow Internet Comic Nerds (Metafilter Local #108296, Go Fight'n Beans!), it's pretty evident that many of these reboots are entirely new characters. A reboot needs to happen from the same starting place as the original - turning Wonder Woman into literally a living statue (although DC is now doing away with that idea) or Superman into a shape-shifter, while neat, are not reboots. I'd totally read a comic based on those characters, mind you, and I do think that they can say something about the core themes presented by the originals, the same way Gruenwald's run Squadron Supreme is a meditation on the Justice League's role in the world.

That and it's just plain fun to reinvent and reboot iconic characters like Superman. By doing so, we get a better understanding of the main character and discover, contrary to popular opinion, that some of the old warhorses of superhero comics are not boring at all. One recent twist we've seen on Superman is in Action Comics. Morrison wants to bring Superman back to his social justice roots, so we start to see Superman as a sort of socialist, maybe even communist (Marx, not Stalin) figure.

Thing is, when it comes to Superman-as-Communist, most re-imaginings are much more hammer than sickle, which doesn't make sense to me. Sure, Superman in his workboots lifting heavy things, lending his union brothers a hand, is a cool image, but shouldn't Superman, who was raised on a farm, who is powered by sunlight, be much closer to the agrarian end of things?

Superman does not make stuff. He is not industry. He does not create new societies or build things in his image. No, Superman tends to things. He makes sure that humanity has what it needs to grow of its own accord. He removes blight and vermin when he sees it, but he does not reshape society to completely prevent it.

Superman is a farmer and humanity is his crop. For the most part, he stays out of the way to let us do the growing. If he were a more industrial figure, he'd be building and reshaping society, smelting a more efficient order by the sweat of his brow and the heat of his laser vision. He could end hunger and crime and mass-produce a sort of utopia, but he does not, just like the farmer in the field does not kill an under-performing plant. Instead, he tends to the crop and tries to see what is causing the poor yield. He has faith that the plant, humanity, will grow the best it can given the opportunity.

A traditional farm is a vast ecology, one complete with crops and animals, just as the Earth is. For a chilling Fortean twist, pause for a moment to consider whose farm the Earth is. "The Earth is a farm. We are someone else's property," wrote Charles Fort. Does that mean, at some point, Superman will harvest us? Will humanity be lead to the slaughter? That certainly puts Lex Luthor's feelings on the man in perspective. Maybe that explains why Luthor is kept around - he's about as close to a talking pig as Superman-as-Farmer would get. Certainly, he'd be worth more at market than the rest of us.

But who is buying?

Reboot vs Reinterpretation

So big thanks to Don who last week in the comments pointed out that Aaron Diaz of Dresden Codak fame took a shot at rebooting some DC characters and has completed a version of the Justice League. It's pretty neat stuff and you should check it out (Cyborg as Moss from IT Crowd is a huge plus).

But is it a reboot? I'm not sure it is. This is not a bad thing, mind you. But it did set my brain a'whirlin. I've been mulling this over for the past week, trying to suss out exactly what constitutes a reboot of a character as opposed to a reinterpretation or reinvention or reimagining or reimaging. Party time at Casa De Drew, believe you me.

I'm still coming to grips with how best to explain this, so please bear with my extremely tortured golf analogy.

So let's start with the Platonic Ideal of a character. That's the Core Concept. The Core Concept should be simple, pretty much a sentence long description. Superman would be something along the lines of "A heroic outsider who lives among us and protects us with his marvelous powers." Batman would be "A wealthy scion who has dedicated his life to avenging a past tragedy."

Now, around this Core Concept we build a shell. This shell is the Presentation, basically how the Core Concept is shown to the world. In comics, this manifests itself in art and backstory and powers and so on. It is why Superman and Martian Manhunter, who share the same Core Concept, are different characters. Both are heroic outsiders living among us protecting us with their powers, but one is from Krypton and the other Mars.

We now have the golf ball that is our character. In order to get any use out of the ball, we take it to a golf course, put it on a tee, and take a swing. The hole, whether it's a par 4, whether it has a water feature or a sand trap or whatever, is the setting we've placed the character/ball in to. Of course, this being a golf course based on an ongoing series, the hole is a troubling Par Infinity, as if the ball makes it to the hole, the game is over and the character ends. (Like the last hole in minigolf.)

So what is a reboot? It's picking up the ball and walking back towards the tee. The ball stays the same, but how it interacts with the course changes. So while you may hit the ball towards the same spot it landed previously, you'll never get it exactly there, and pretty soon, you're experiencing an entirely different hole. This time round, you might end up in the rough or miss the sandtrap entirely.

A reinterpretation? Changing the Presentation Shell around the Core Concept. So in a way, Martian Manhunter is a reinterpretation of Superman. Which, I think, makes sense given the character's history.

By changing the starting tee and course, you get your What Ifs, your Red Sons and Gothams by Gaslight. If we need to stick to the 're' theme, let's call it a re-imaging. 

You can change both the shell and the course and still have an iteration of the same character, but this would be a reinvention. For example, Hyperion of Marvel's Squadron Supreme is a reinvention of Superman. Different presentation, different experiences, but same Core Concept.

You can't up and change the Core Concept without ending up with a different character entirely, but the Core can change/evolve over time. Sometimes, though, you can't even change the presentation of the character without changing the character as a whole - popular culture simply has made the shell too thick to crack. Superman can fly. Period. Everyone knows that. A Superman incapable of flight is not really Superman. Even though Clark has had his feet on the ground at least three times in recent memory (Smallville, the Grounded arc, and most recently Action Comics #1), it was made clear to the reader/viewer that he'd be able to fly again eventually. Permanently dialing Superman back to his original, leaping incarnation simply would not (pun intended) fly nowadays, no matter how many supercars you give him. Right, Nic?

RIGHT!

This hard shell only really applies to Big Name characters. You can change all you want about minor characters and get away with it. Well, usually, right Halle?

RIGHT!

Looking over not only Aaron's reboots, but many of my own, I see a lot of reinterpretations and reinventions. Again, this isn't good or bad. On my part we have an Aquaman who is not the King of Atlantis, a Batwoman who is not a bat, and an Adam Strange who hosts his own reality TV show. Aaron has a Flash who views his powers as a curse, a Superman who has a third secret identity, and Wonder Woman as a living statue.

But I hesitate now to call them reboots.